THIS CANNOT HAPPEN AGAIN...CAN IT?

Guten Tag,

Where do I begin? I have so many thoughts going around in my brain. Must admit I would like to just forget but I cannot and I will not! I have been to Dachau and it was bad enough but I was not ready to SEE what they have preserved here so we SHALL never forget. What was really curious to Lennie and I was a young woman, in her mid to late 20's, from England, who had so many questions? Starting out with, "I never realized this all happened?" Coming to realize that in many schools today the Holocaust is just skimmed over unless you have a teacher who refuses to let it be forgotten.

I will never forget the one glassed in 25 foot wall that was nothing but hair! Hair that was shaved off as they entered the camp to stay or die, and than sent off to be used for rugs, clothing, fertilizer you name it they had a use for this hair. More glassed in walls filled with 1,000's of hairbrushes, toothbrushes, bottle brushes and being sent off to be "used" in other camps! Another glassed in wall of nothing but shoes, thousands and thousands of shoes! Eerily many matched sets together and all styles, sizes and for all ages! Another....full of kitchen things, mostly enamelware from canisters to cooking pots you think of it it was inside this glassed wall. Display cases full of beautiful handmade children's clothes and baby buntings, blankets...many taken and used by the SS families. Their one stop shopping! Adolph Hess, the commandant, said he and his family lived in an almost paradise conditions! You see his mansion across the street and outside the gates of the Camp it is 3 stories high with fine manicured gardens, the finest of food, the most expensive of shoes.........all thanks to the Jews who worked for them and so they could have this "paradise!"

Standing at the shooting wall and walking inside the gates to where this gate was almost more than I could bear. Thinking how these people must of felt walking in knowing, unlike myself, would never walk out again. What was so "kind" of the SS, they boarded up the windows that saw out to this courtyard, so no one could see the atrocities that were going on here... so nice of them! Everything in these camps were based on lies and deceit! Everything! Now, we thought this was a bad place...Auschwitz number one...than we went on a short bus ride to Birkenau........now this WAS what I seen in the movies....but a 100 times worse. I think the first thing that came to mind........NO PRIVACY....I would have gone crazy just from that because I am an introvert and all those people all the time would have drove me insane! I was not ready to see what I did and the rainy, cold, foggy day just made it more real. We cannot imagine what it must have been with snow, and they get lots and lots of snow there, with below zero temps. The ladies had to go from their barracks to the shower, which they might get once a month...naked to the "sanitary" barracks no matter the temperature outside. I realized at this moment this had to be one of the most humbling experiences anyone would ever experience. I know for myself as a woman I would never want anyone to see me naked for vanity reasons more than anything....vanity I do believed had to to be thrown out survival was the focus and those who were vain certainly would NOT have survived!

I have always been intrigued in the Holocaust. I have read and seen everything I could get my hands on through the years. I have been to Dachau, Anne Frank's and Corrie ten Boom's homes and I my two favorite books are "Mila 18" about the ghetto in Warsaw by Leon Uris and "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom. Also the "Zion Chronicles" and "Zion Covenant" series but nothing prepared me for the reality of this place. What what really touched my heart how this place has become a place of "remembrance" for the Jewish people. There were 100's of people there on "pilgrimage" from Israel. Carrying Israeli flags and marching the Torah to the entrance of the "ovens!" It made it even more real, but I still felt I was experiencing a surreal moment until I saw where the ovens were. They have left the remains of the buildings so the EVIDENCE is still there. Another story of deceit the SS officers would have the "ovens" appear like cottages with flowers planted around them and well manicured gardens....with them being up kept by the Jewish prisoners! They thought they were offices or houses where the SS lived. One of the reasons they created Birkenau, they could kill more bodies a day there....up to 300 a day on some days! Than the ashes were used for numerous things....NOT buried...used.....God forbid if something was gone to waste!

The last thing I want to say before I close for the day. I do not want to make light of this it was horrific. My concern we say we never want this to happen again but since 1973 51 million babies have been aborted.........so it is still happening and the same deceit is going on. Human nature is to believe what we want to believe no matter the evidence or the remains of the atrocities. God says without His wisdom and knowledge we are fools. So my conclusions there are many many fools walking this earth today ........I use to be one but the TRUTH set me free and I pray I will never forget. If persecution comes to me I certainly was not the first and I will not be the last. Let us NEVER forget and take the blinders off of our eyes and heart because the world is still doing these same evils just have different names for them...and sadly to say some are legal....does that make it right?

Tschuss,

Debby